Originally, I thought this might be our toughest
match of the three this weekend. In the end, we produced our
biggest win of the season (and also equalled the biggest win in
the division so far). While the match was taking place, it wasn't
nearly so easy!

The opposition knew over a week before that none
of their three registered female players was available. Despite
extensive advertising, they were unable to find a suitable wild-card,
but thankfully were good enough to save Teresa a wasted journey.
(The dearth of alternative female players is a concern, which
Wessex have suffered from on previous occasions.) Jamie's
opponent did turn up, but not for long. Having grabbed a rather
warm pawn, Jamie was delighted to then be presented with a piece
as well. 2-0 up encouraged Ian to stop looking for artificial
means to make progress, but by then a number of the remainig
games looked rather dubious.

I played a particularly risky line of the
Chigorin, not helped by putting my queen on the wrong square.
However, my opponent had developed a mindset of not taking most
of my proffered material and this allowed me to bale out with a
draw. To the impartial observer, Tony looked to be in some
trouble having shed a couple of pawns, but he was then given the
opportunity to demonstrate the power of his two bishops. Martin
won a pawn but allowed a lot of compensation to appear until he
made one of his better moves by agreeing the draw which won us
the match. Richard reached an ending with 2Bs v 2Ns and an extra
pawn and neatly hobbled the knights.

Rawle's game was almost indescribable. After a
bizarre opening which suggested that he was trying to play
draughts with his pawns, he lost a pawn while attempting to
consolidate. At the time control, I assessed his position as
worse but possibly winning. He was then duped into swapping into
a bishop ending that looked winning, but was in fact lost.

Moore,G - Allicock,R

Having reached a winning position, his opponent
blundered with: 55.Kg5??

The scoreboard suggests a solid performance - in truth it was
not so comfortable.

Jamie somehow persuaded Kosteniuk minor to agree to a draw
just as his position started to look difficult. Richard spent
most of his time considering two draw offers and working out what
was happening in my game. He was still in theory when he called a
halt.

Ian's game was uneventful. Teresa spent some
time untangling her pieces before breaking through. This put us 3½-1½
up but we were struggling to various degrees in the remaing games.
Tony was trying once again to demonstrate the power of two
bishops while being two pawns down, this time in an ending.
Somehow he won one pawn back and swapped most of the rest off. By
the time the fire alarm went off, matters looked rather more
comfortable. Martin managed to swap into a drawn K+P ending.
Rawle had been worse out of the opening, sacrificed a piece,
spurned various draws by repetition as by then he was better and
then blundered into a lost position in which his opponent chose
to repeat moves rather than win. He promised to play more
classically on the Monday. (Some would say that he had already
played two classics.)

The opposition had been weakened by the loss of a player from
their second team, but we failed to take advantage.

I had an early initiative which had evaporated by the time I
was offered a draw. Martin had also gone slightly wrong, thus
wasting two of our whites. Richard always looked in some trouble
out of the opening. By the time he lost, there was a real
possibility of draws on all the other boards. Ian couldn't make
progress in a knight ending. Teresa stood a bit worse in a
cramped position. Jamie won a pawn but was very concerned by his
opponent's two bishops. Happily, Rawle played another magnificent
game, grabbing a pawn, spurning a draw by repetition and taking
advantage of his opponent's severe time-trouble.

All square with one to play. Tony had been conserving a small
advantage into a knight ending, when his opponent blundered a
pawn in time-trouble. I left at the time control thinking he had
an 80% chance of winning. Analysis in the car with Martin raised
our estimate to 95%, so it was something of a shock and
disappointment to learn that he had blundered in time-trouble
ahead of move 60 and only drawn.

This still leaves us first equal in the table, but with two
rather difficult games in the final weekend when one win might
not be enough for promotion.